Hovercars here we come! [Video]

October 20, 2011

Probably one of the more memorable lines I remember from “That ‘70s Show” is Red Foreman’s exclamation that he was promised flying cars at the end of the Korean War, and thanks to popular culture – shows like the “Jetsons,” or the hover board from the second “Back to the Future” – and sci-fi in general for that matter, there has long been an expectation that one day there would be flying cars. And we might have taken one step closer in that direction.

Quantum_Levitation is a research group at the Tel Aviv University are studying superconductivity, a process whereby a material is able to conduct electricity without any resistance, resulting in no energy loss. This process however also spawns something called the Meissner Effect, whereby the superconducting material expels a magnetic field from within.

Quantum_Levitation has taken advantage of this principle – though has to work with -185 C cooled materials that are almost wafer thin to levitate, but levitate it does. Presently a parlour trick, it’s a promising step forward that we’re able to create effects that allow us to study this phenomenon and get a better understanding of the mechanisms behind it.